San Marcos High’s 1-in-5 Pregnancy Figure Shocks Community

The news has rocked this quiet, bedroom community: more than 150 girls at San Marcos High School--about one of every five girls at the school--were pregnant during the 1983-84 school year.

Only nine of those pregnancies ended in childbirth; the others were aborted or miscarried.

And the number of pregnant girls on campus is increasing this year.

Those were findings of a high school counselor, deliberately released by school district officials last week to shock this community into reassessing its awareness--or naivete--about teen-age sexual activity.

And, if nothing else, the announcement has done just that.

Teachers are debating the value of the sex education curriculum. Ministers are challenging the family values and spirituality of home life. And mothers and fathers have been shocked into wondering if their teen-age daughters are promiscuous--or have become pregnant and gotten an abortion without their knowledge.

“People think of teen-age pregnancies in terms of happening in the San Fernando Valley or San Francisco or New York. Not here in San Marcos. But it turns out we’re no different,” mused Barbara Marchetta, who is active as a school district volunteer and is herself the mother of three teen-age girls.

“I was stunned by the figures,” said Sharon Lyons, president of the San Marcos Junior High School PTA. “I think a lot of parents are like me--they knew it (teen-age pregnancy) was out there but maybe it wouldn’t touch us. They didn’t personally worry about it.

“Now that this has come out, I see it’s time for me to sit down with my kids and get into this.”

Wes Walsvick, the school’s principal, said, “I bet there’s been more dialogue this past week between young ladies and their parents than has ever gone on in the history of San Marcos.”

The number of pregnancies among San Marcos High School girls is double the generally quoted figure by Planned Parenthood that one in 10 teen-age girls in the United States will become pregnant every year. Another study, published in 1981, suggests that four out of 10 teen-age girls will become pregnant before they turn 20, and that two in 10 will give birth.

The local disclosure has unleashed a flurry of questions that have been asked nationwide for years but which suddenly have new and urgent relevance in San Marcos:

How is it possible so many girls become pregnant? Who is at fault? The schools? The churches? Parents? Society and its general attitude toward sexual freedom?

And what can be done?

San Marcos school officials realized they were exposing their community to public ridicule by releasing the figures, but they say the only other option would be a worse disservice--ignoring the problem.

“This is not a San Marcos problem,” Supt. William Streshly said. “We’ve simply identified our share of the national problem. And if parents in El Cajon or Lemon Grove or anywhere else think they shouldn’t face up to this problem in their communities as well, then they’ve got their heads in the sand.”

Indeed, officials at other high schools around San Diego County say that while they have no way of knowing how many girls in their schools become pregnant, they aren’t altogether shocked by the findings in San Marcos.

One North County high school principal suggested at the outset of an interview that the San Marcos figures were so sensational as to be unbelievable. “No way could that many girls be pregnant,” he declared. Then, after one of the counselors within earshot of the conversation interrupted him, he returned to the phone. “Geez, my people say it sounds about right to them. God, I can’t believe it.”

Irene Stone, a vice principal at Escondido High School, said officials there don’t know the number of pregnancies among girls on campus, “but it may be as high” as San Marcos. “Most parents are unaware of the extent of the problem,” she said. “It’s a natural response on the part of the family to not think it could happen to their child.”

Alan Johnson, principal at Vista High School, said, “The figures are certainly curious enough to cause us to look at what might be happening here as well. It may be that schools need to reconsider at what grade level we’re introducing some of these issues.”

Lois Richmond, a counselor at San Marcos High, compiled the figures after noticing an increase in the number of girls coming to her who either mentioned in passing that they were pregnant, or specifically sought guidance after discovering they were pregnant.

In the five years prior to the 1983-84 school year, the school averaged 30 to 40 reported pregnancies a year. But in 1983-84, by her own count, Richmond had talked to more than 150 pregnant girls. She said others also may be pregnant but haven’t told her. “Every time a girl told me she was pregnant, I’d put a blank slip of paper in a file,” she said. “And so far this year, I’ve got more than 100 slips of paper.”

Among the pregnant girls, a “high percentage” were 14-year-old freshmen, she said. They either had little or no knowledge of how easy it is to become pregnant, were too embarrassed to use birth control devices even though they intended to have sex, or risked pregnancy in order to win the friendship or romance of an older boy, she said.

Once pregnant, virtually every girl who didn’t lose her baby in miscarriage turned to abortion, generally because she was afraid to confide in her parents.

“Some girls would have an abortion at 3 o’clock and be at a beach party at 6, and others would come to me two or three months later and say, ‘Is it really true I murdered my baby?’ But at the time they make their decision, they don’t think of the consequences of their decision,” Richmond said.

She said she discusses with each girl the options for handling her pregnancy, but is prohibited by law from advising them on a specific course of action. She said her first and strongest advice is for the student to confide in her parents; if she refuses, then she suggests that the girl visit the county’s North County Health Services office in San Marcos for specific pregnancy counseling.

The state Education Code section on student-counselor confidentiality prohibits counselors from notifying authorities or parents about the pregnancies, Richmond noted--a reversal of the Education Code’s requirements seven years ago that specifically ordered school counselors to tell parents if their children were pregnant. And since other state law allows minor pregnant women to seek abortions without a parent or guardian being notified, girls may have ended their pregnancies without their parents ever knowing they were pregnant.

“I had one mother tell me she wasn’t worried about her daughter because she is on restriction and won’t be allowed to date until she’s 16,” Richmond said. “And I know that her daughter, who is 15, has had four abortions.”

Streshly said, “You become immune to the national figures on teen-age pregnancies and then all of a sudden it hits you in your own white, middle class school district.”

Richmond described one reaction to the news: “Two women came to the office and said they wanted to adopt babies.”

San Marcos High students say they too were surprised by the high number of pregnancies--but nearly all admitted that they knew one or more girls on campus who were pregnant.

“My mom was shocked, but not me. My best friend is pregnant,” said 16-year-old Christy Daly, a junior. “After the news came out, my mom told me that if I ever get pregnant, to tell her.”

Another girl said, “We used to be farm girls from a hick school. Now everyone sees us as sluts. We’ve got a really bad reputation.”

And some said their parents are, for the first time, wondering if they are having sex or are pregnant. “I’m sure my mom was thinking it in the back of her mind,” offered Susie Cosgrove, a 16-year-old.

San Marcos High offers several classes that touch on sex. A mandatory ninth-grade health and safety class discusses the availability of public health agencies, but avoids specific discussion on sex and sexuality.

Another course on physiology, an elective class which is taken by about 80% of the school’s freshmen, has an extensive unit on the physiology of sex. And introduced this year was a new course on “decision making” in which students discuss self-esteem, critical thinking skills and the consequences of one’s decision. The class does not specifically address sexuality “but it talks about how it’s OK to say ‘no,’ ” Walsvick said.

In the senior year, in an elective course called “Living in Style,” a class on family life that is taken by nearly half of the school’s seniors.

“The kids in the class just about fell over when they heard the (pregnancy) figures,” said Barbara Dolan, who teaches the course. And, in class discussion, the students suggested that they, as well as teachers and parents, could help with the problem.

“A lot of the freshmen girls think that having sex with the older boys will make them popular, so the seniors in my class said they ought to talk to the younger kids about that,” Dolan said. “I’m not sure a parent will talk as candidly to a child (about sex) as another student will, because I’m not sure how many parents will admit their children are sexually active in the first place.”

Four students in the class were selected to meet with small groups of incoming freshmen boys and girls during spring registration to discuss sex and school. “They’re going to tell the kids coming in that they don’t have to be sexually active to be popular,” Dolan said.

Dolan’s class also delves into sexual responsibility, values, dating, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. A doctor discusses sexuality, and a spokesman representing an organization called Crisis Pregnancy discusses options to abortion.

The students also discuss the morality of having sex before marriage. “Of 42 kids in my morning class, 35 are Catholic and they all feel very strongly that sex waits until marriage,” she said.

The problem, school officials say, is that such classes on morality, values and sexuality come too late in a high school career. Younger students “can draw the diagram and label all the parts, but they don’t know what to do in the situation, and how to deal with their feelings,” Richmond said.

Whereas junior high school students in San Marcos are not exposed to sex education, the topic is first broached to sixth graders in the San Diego Unified School District. The course discusses human physiology “and is taught from the point of view of this is what married people do after they get married,” said Judy Kirsten, a teacher in the district’s Pregnant Minor Program.

Eighth-grade students whose parents don’t object are exposed to a five-hour mini-course on sex education, said Nancy Siemers, who helps teach the course.

The students discuss such subjects as menstruation, pregnancy and birth control. “I’ve talked to parent groups and given them an indication of the kinds of questions these students ask, and the parents for the most part are floored,” said Siemers. “They can’t believe their kids have questions of that depth, and they are amazed that the kids are even that interested in sex.

“Parents don’t seem to realize that their kids’ bodies are vital and raring to go. The problem is, offering five hours of sex education won’t counteract the thousands of hours they get of TV and rock music and advertising that’s sex-oriented. You can’t hit these kids for five hours and expect to baby-proof them.”

The answer, she and other educators say, is greater responsibility at home.

“If parents can’t give the right technical answers (about sex), they can at least deal with the values structure at home,” she said.

Janet Stanley, the San Diego coordinator of community education for Planned Parenthood, said, “In the best of circumstances, parents should be the best and primary educators. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening since they didn’t get it (sex education) when they were kids. It’s a cycle we have to break.”

Sharon Lyons, president of the San Marcos Junior High School PTA, said parents are abdicating their role as sex educators. “I don’t think parents are trying to teach values and morality. They’re saying, ‘OK, we’re going to send you to school, where you’ll get lunch, discipline and after-school activities.’ Parents are dropping the whole ball of wax.”

San Marcos School Board president Peggy Rutherford suggested the need for a comprehensive, countywide task force to study the question of sex education. “But it still goes back to the parents and communication. Too many parents talk at their kids, not with them.”

Local ministers agreed, and also pointed the finger at the home front.

“It’s time to wake up,” declared the Rev. William Schumacher, pastor of San Marcos Lutheran Church, who equated the pregnancy rate with a lack of spirituality. “I’m convinced that if our people in San Marcos would spend one hour a week in church and let their spiritual life develop, we could turn this problem upside down.

“In a town of this size in the Midwest, there would be five times as many active churches as we have here in San Marcos. This is a spiritual problem,” he said. “And another problem is, people don’t sit at the dinner table any more. Either one person comes in to eat at 4:30, another at 5 and another at 6, or they all sit at the kitchen bar and eat. They don’t even bother to sit at a table and look at each other.”

Ron Kisner, the youth minister at the Community Church of San Marcos, said the troubled young people he encounters complain they have no relationship with their parents.

“What I hear most constantly is, ‘My parents don’t give a rip about me.’ They say they’re getting lost in the shuffle, especially if both parents work.”

The school district next month will send a letter to parents of students formally notifying them of Richmond’s findings and the need for the parents to come to grips with the problem. With the letter will be “parenting tips” on how questions about sex and sexuality can best be answered.

“It is our hope that parents can be made aware of pressures facing their children and will discuss standards of behavior, consequences, family values and related topics with them,” the letter reads.